Rugby Malta's promotion bid ended in Lithuania

The Malta rugby national team failed in their bid to win promotion to the Trophy division after going down heavily to Lithuania 81-10 in Siaulai, yesterday. As the scoreline clearly shows the home side were clearly a cut above Damian Neill’s men and had the match all but wrapped up midway through the first half when they were already leading 24-0. The Lithuanians went on a rampage in the first half as they scored seven tries, as the pace and power of their forwards gave little respite to the Maltese defence. Malta’s only response came through a James Kirk try which, however, was not converted by James O’Brien to leave the team trailing 45-5 at half-time. In the second half, the Lithuanians showed no signs of letting up and they added six more tries to wrap up a resounding victory. Chris Dudman did score Malta’s second try of the match to give the visitors a somewhat more respectable final scoreline. Lithuania will now move to the trophy division where they will now play against Portugal, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Poland. Malta, on the other hand, will again play in the Conference South 1 where they will bid to top the division for a third successive year.